Phoenix Comicon Reveals 2013 Badge Art Winners

Attention Phoenix Comicon fanatics: While there's still more than three weeks left to go until the event itself -- 24 long, agonizing days to be exact -- its organizers offered up a tasty appetizer earlier today to help whet your appetites and make the time pass more quickly.

This morning, the hard-working braintrust behind the annual comic book/pop culture megafest, which invades the Phoenix Convention Center over Memorial Day weekend, revealed the badge art for 2013. And, as in year's past, the pieces are amazing, amusing, and definitely easy on the eyes.

The results of the badge art contest, which was determined by a combination of an online voting process and other factors by organizers, includes the 20 most popular entries overall from this year's field, as well as the 13 pieces that ultimately will be worn proudly by Comicon patrons, staff members, special guests, and attendees from Thursday, May 23, to Sunday, May 26. (The other seven entries received much-deserved "honorable mentions.")

A total of nine different artists, including a few winners from previous contests, created dramatic and eye-catching works that will appear on 2013's crop of badges, which we anticipate will be stashed away as prized souvenirs of this year's Comicon.

"Doctor Who" by Val Hotchberg.

Doctor Who fans, for instance, who purchase the full event membership (i.e. admission to all four days of Phoenix Comicon) will likely treasure Valley comic book artist Val Hochberg's depiction of the eleventh and current version of the Time Lord being chased by a cadre of his greatest foes, including The Master, a Dalek, a couple of Weeping Angels (don't blink!), and Ood Sigma that shall adorn their badge.

Another Whovian-related piece in the top 13, and one of our personal favorites, is the John Domrzalski's Cyberman by way of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which will be sported by the event's multitude of staffers.

There's also plenty of actual comic book characters that made the top 13 entries, including Hochberg's action-packed renditions of DC heroine Wonder Woman pictured above and Marvel mutant Hope Summers, as well as Ernest Romero's digital drawing of Spiderman and Butler's sword-wielding version of Hellboy (in honor of the latter character's creator Mike Mignola making an appearance at Comicon).

"Hellboy" by Jordan Butler.

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